5 Steps to Write Insanely Good Fantasy Villains

so a writer recently asked me how can you create an extremely original villain and after reflecting on my own experience of publishing four fantasy books and now having coached over 90 writers through my different programs I've realized that there are five key principles that will help you write a villain that feels fresh unpredictable dangerous and Incredibly memorable and the first principle is to start with an original motivation one of the best ways to make your antagonist feel fresh is by giving them motivations that we don't see all the time so many antagonists are after power

money or Revenge sure those motivations can work well but if you want readers to walk away feeling like they've encountered someone truly unique then your villain needs a reason that goes beyond the usual cliches here's a few less commonly seen examples to give you a bit of inspiration here number one Redemption maybe your villain is trying to redeem themselves for a past mistake even if it means they make some morally questionable decisions for example maybe you have a powerful sorcerer who once Unleashed a devastating curse on a village and is now seeking a kind of

redemption by trying to eliminate all magic because they think it's too dangerous for Mortals to have this Relentless Crusade then will put them at odds with your main character if your main character is trying to use their magic in a responsible fashion number two the greater good perhaps your villain or your antagonist is driven by a genuine belief that their actions will improve Society or the world and this means your villain could be a kind of reformer or idealist almost who has just gone a little bit too far for example maybe you write about a

revolutionary leader who genuinely wants to free their people from a tyrannical regime but they believe the only way to succeed is through extreme sacrifice as a result maybe they see casualties even amongst innocent bystanders as an acceptable price to pay for the greater Freedom they Envision number three Legacy maybe your villain is motivated by a desire to leave a lasting Legacy or achieve some form of immortality or long-lasting reputation they could be driven to be making mark on history or to be gaining eternal life even if it requires morally dark choices to do so again

this is a bit of an instance of the end justifying the means for example maybe you write about an ancient Monarch who is trying to build a dynasty that will rule for eternity and this Monarch is very willing to sacrifice their own family members citizens and anyone else who gets in their way if it means that they can create this unbreakable line that will endure for Generations number four desire for love family or belonging sometimes your villain just wants connection but they have a twisted approach to finding it as a result they may Force loyalty

try to control relationships or manipulate people to create the sense of belonging that they crave for example maybe you have a Lonely Forest witch who kidnaps passing Travelers and attempts to build a psychically brainwashed Community deep in the woods she essentially is charming or cursing these people to stay believing that as long as no one leaves she finally has her family number five restoring the natural order maybe your villain sees themselves as a guardian of nature or some Cosmic balance or they seek to protect some kind of special tradition as a result they may oppose

the change that your protagonist is trying to create because they see that protagonist as upsetting the natural order of things for example a spirit of death who views the healing magic used by your main character as an affront to the Natural order of life and death may see themselves as restor ing balance when they are preventing mortars from unnaturally extending their lives and therefore they would be in pretty obvious opposition to your main character and then the last example of an original antagonist motivation here is curiosity for example maybe you have a magic user who

is obsessed with discovering new spells and as a result they're constantly testing forbidden Magic on themselves and on others even as the side effects from that become horrifying they may be driven by this belief that this knowledge is worth any price and any sacrifice is Justified if I can be making progress in my understanding of the magic when you give your villain a motivation we haven't seen before you start to build a character who feels so much more complex and memorable as a result but if you want to take this to the next level then

you should also be following the second principle make their approach distinctive it's not just what the antagonist wants but how they actually try to get it so maybe for example your main character is a warrior who everyone usually attacks with physical Force but maybe your main antagonist gains access to the Journal of your main character's old Mentor they then use their knowledge of the main character's past to exploit them make them doubt their memories make them doubt their abilities maybe even make them question their motivations until your main character is paralyzed by self-doubt the key

Point here is that when you give your antagonist this unique approach to attacking your main character it sets them apart and it makes them feel Fresh Plus it also really increases the amount of Challenge and conflict that your main character goes through to give you a bit of inspiration here here's three somewhat unique ways that your antagonist can be attacking your main character the first one is by undermining your protagonist's morals and principles so maybe your antagonist is really good at setting up situations where the hero must compromise their values hoping to break their Spirit

or push them into moral ambiguity the second method is to use psychological manipulation so maybe the villain just your main character's perception of reality or plants seeds of doubt in their mind gradually undermining their confidence and mental stability number three corrupting influence maybe your villain is able to slowly corrupt and turn your protagonist's friends and allies against them so their support network is weakened as they go through the story leaving your character all alone to face your antagonist okay so we're about to move on to the third principle for crafting unique antagonists and I would

say out of everything this video This is is my personal favorite but first if you're wanting to write better characters in your fantasy novel you should definitely join my free 5day character writing course you can sign up to that by using the link in the description this course shares the best character development exercises I've learned from writing my own novels and almost 2,000 fantasy writers have gone through it so far many of them have even left amazing reviews like this one from Daniel Wilford before I took this 5-day crash course my characters were flat dull

and hardly had one dimension but afterward I improved in ways I didn't even realize were possible it's hard to choose just one piece of advice as the most useful but if I had to pick I'd go with the character Hooks and interviews because they help me give my characters personalities and understand them on a deeper level thanks Jed you can sign up for free by using the link in the description below this video and now let's move on to the third principle for writing highly original antagonists show what your antagonist is like outside of the

main story conflict what is your antagonist doing when they're not clashing with your main character this this is a question I love to ask the students in my fantasy outlining boot camp we're actually currently in the middle of character week in cohort 4 of the program at the moment so we're having a lot of fun discussions about my students characters and I'm really enjoying it now back to this kind of question you don't always need a good answer for this because some villains do work better when they are mysterious and unknowable however in a lot

of fantasy novels it can be really powerful to show your antagonists regular life this is the kind of detail that makes them feel far more human and far more layered for example in the 1992 anti-western Unforgiven Little Bill dagger who is the town's corrupt sheriff is shown spending time just happily working on his house he's a terrible Carpenter but he's proud of his work and he shows it off despite its flaws this small glimpse into his personal life makes him feel so much more human and less like this one-dimensional villain and as a result there

is just a much greater sense of layers and complexity to his character because without this scene he might just come across as a standard somewhat cliched corrupt authority figure but this personal detail of him being this really amateurish and really crappy Carpenter makes him so much more memorable and relatable and then also contrasts to later in the story where he is just genuinely terrifying and extremely intimidating plus it also leads to this fantastic final dialogue exchange with William Money our anti-hero protagonists I don't deserve this to die like this I was building a house deserves

got nothing to do with it now the next principle to be thinking about is to rethink the term villain personally I hate the word villain I find it to be incredibly limiting and the reason for that is because it just implies someone who was quite one-dimensionally evil or morally bankrupt with no possibility of redemption and a certain lack of realism to them instead of thinking hero versus villain I like to think in terms of protagonist which is just the person we're following in the story and antagonist who is the person opposing that point of view

character and I know I've been using the terms antagonist and villain somewhat interchangeably in this video but my key Point here is that an antagonist is just simply the person who opposes your main character's goals they just stand in your hero's way sure they could be an evil Dark Lord but it could also be your character's parents who just want them to take a different route with their life or maybe it's your protagonist's love interest who doesn't want your character getting involved in the plot of your story you get the picture here right like this

framing just lets you create a character who is not necessarily evil but who just opposes the protagonist for their own reasons and this opens up a lot of space for originality because now you don't have to check off the usual mustache twirling villain boxes right you can have an antagonist be morally ambiguous or even sympathetic maybe more sympathetic than your main character and that makes them so much more interesting and thought-provoking to read to quote from James Baldwin no one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart for his Purity by definition

is unassailable for example in Victor Hugo's L miserab inspector J is not a sort of mustach twirling evil villain I've used that term mustach twirling quite a bit in this video but I think it kind of captures what I'm talking about here JT is just relentlessly loyal to the law so his role as antagonist to our protagonist Jean valan is not based on personal hatred it's driven by a strict sense of justice jav's motivations are understandable even if they are extreme in how he's pursuing our main character and he is someone that you can actually

sympathize with because he's just trying to do his job even though he is opposed to your main character so when you reframe villain as antagonist it just allows you as a writer to explore these Shades of Gray that make your characters feel so much more realistic and this is why I love stories Like A Game of Thrones or the first law series by Joe abomi because it's not good guy and bad guy it's just everyone is trying to get the things that they want and that puts them into opposition with each other and I think

that that is more realistic to how life actually works and then the next principle to think about when it comes to writing more original unique antagonists in your fantasy Noel is to apply the 99% rule so in my first chapter Mastery course I talk about this idea of using the 99% rule in your opening chapter essentially the rule goes like this how can you show your main character making a choice that 99% of other characters would not make in the same situation and how can you do that in the early chapters of your novel to

quickly give a reader a snapshot of who this person is and what's important to them when you can do this when you can have your main character making an unusual or unique decision it shows readers that this character is different from other characters they've read it shows they're different from the norm and that helps to make them so much more memorable because what you're doing here is giving them a Unique Edge that keeps them from feeling generic and this same advice applies equally well to your antagonists for example consider Hans Lander in in glorious bastards

hanser is a Nazi officer but he doesn't act like a stereotypical cold-hearted villain instead he's kind of charming polite and he sort of plays with his prey in these oddly courteous ways before exposing them for example in the opening scene he is sitting down with his French farmer and he spends almost 10 minutes in Pleasant small talk before he gets the farmer to then reveal that he's hiding Jews under the floorboards most antagonists in that role would go in guns blazing relying on physical Force to apprehend their targets yet Hanser's manipulation and patience makes him

so much more unsettling and unique he operates in a way that 99% of other antagonists probably wouldn't and makes him far more memorable now if you want to make sure that your fantasy antagonists are as interesting as possible it is crucial to avoid the seven most common antagonist mistakes that I often see new fantasy writers make you can click here to watch this video where I break down these seven mistakes along with how to avoid each of them keep riding and keep striving